The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume X Part 26

When Bazaine, at three o'clock, received word that the Germans were extending the line to enclose his right wing, he ordered Picard's Division of the Grenadier Guards, posted at Plappeville, to advance to the scene of action. Though the distance was no more than a mile through the wooded valley on the right of the highway, his all-important reinforcement had not yet arrived at seven o'clock, and Marshal Canrobert, who was hardly able, by the most strenuous efforts, to check the advance of the Prussians, decided to rally his troops closer to the fortified town of St.-Privat. The retreat from Roncourt was to be covered by a small rearguard, as the border of the Bois de Jaumont was to be held.

Thus it happened that the Saxons found less resistance at Roncourt than they expected, and entered the town after a short struggle, together with the companies of the extreme left of the Guards; part of them had previously been diverted from the road to Roncourt to a.s.sist the Guards, and marched direct on St.-Privat. There terrible havoc was worked by the twenty-four batteries of the two German Corps. Many houses were in flames, or falling in ruins under the shower of sh.e.l.l.

But the French were determined to defend this point, where the fate of the day was to be decided, to the last. The batteries belonging to their right wing were placed between St.-Privat and the Bois de Jaumont, that is, on the flank of the advancing Saxons. Others faced the Prussians from the south, and as the German columns came on side by side they were received by a shower of bullets from the French rifles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAPITULATION OF SEDAN ANTON VON WERNER]

All these obstacles were defied in the onward rush, though again under heavy losses, some stopping here and there to fire a volley, others again never firing a shot. By sundown they stood within 300 paces of St.-Privat. Some detachments of the Xth Corps, who were on the road to St.-Ail, now joined them, and the final onset was made from every side at once. The French still defended the burning houses and the church with great obstinacy, till, finding themselves completely surrounded, they surrendered at about eight o'clock. More than 2,000 men were taken prisoners, and the wounded were rescued from the burning houses.

The defeated remnant of the IVth French Corps retired towards the valley of the Moselle, their retreat being covered by the brigade occupying the Bois de Jaumont and by the cavalry.

Only at that period did the Grenadier Guards put in an appearance, drawing up the artillery reserves east of Amanvillers. The German batteries at once took up the fight, which lasted till late in the night, and Amanvillers also was left burning.

Here the retirement of the IVth French Corps had already commenced, screened by repeated severe onslaughts; the right wing of the Guards and the left of the IXth Corps had a lively hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy. Still the town remained in the hands of the French for the night. Their IIId Corps maintained their position at Moscow until three o'clock, and the IId until five o'clock in the morning, though engaged in constant frays with the outposts of the Pomeranian Division, who eventually took possession of the plateaus of Moscow and Point-du-Jour.

This success of the 18th of August had only been made possible by the preceding battles of the 14th and 16th.

The French estimate their losses at 13,000 men. In October, 173,000 were still in Metz, which proves that more than 180,000 French engaged in the battle of the 18th. The seven German Corps facing them were exactly 178,818 strong. Thus the French had been driven out of a position of almost unrivalled natural advantages by a numerically inferior force. It is self-evident that the loss of the aggressors must have been much greater than that of the defence; it amounted to 20,584 men, among them 899 officers.

Though the war-establishment provides one officer to every forty men, in this battle one officer had been killed to every twenty-three; a splendid testimony to the example set by the officers to their brave men, but a loss which could not be made good during the course of the war. During the first fortnight of August, in six battles the Germans had lost 50,000 men. It was impossible at once to find subst.i.tutes, but new companies were formed of time-expired soldiers.

The first thing to be done that same evening was to move on the foremost baggage train, and the ambulance corps from the right bank of the Moselle; ammunition was also served out all round. In Rezonville, which was crowded with the wounded, a little garret for the King and quarters for the Staff had with much difficulty been secured. The officers were engaged throughout the night in studying the requirements which the new situation created by the victory peremptorily demanded. All these orders were placed before His Majesty for approval by the morning of the 19th.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 45: From _The Franco-German War of 1870-71_. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York and London.]

CONSOLATORY THOUGHTS ON THE EARTHLY LIFE AND A FUTURE EXISTENCE (1890)[46]

TRANSLATED BY MARY HERMS

PREFACE

The last noteworthy use to which the aged Fieldmarshal put his pen was to commit to paper certain reflections and chains of reasoning, for which he drew upon the rich experience of his strenuous and eventful life, and in which he hoped to find consolation in his last days, and a vantage ground from which he might cast a glance over the unknown future and confirm his faith in an everlasting life.

The aim of the Fieldmarshal, in writing these pages, was to attain to clearness of vision concerning his earthly lot, to bring the forces which were at work in his soul into harmony with those which govern the universe, to reconcile faith and knowledge, and to satisfy himself that life on this earth can only be regarded as a preparation for eternal life, and must be regulated accordingly. So lofty is this aim that it alone ent.i.tles these confessions to a serious and respectful consideration. But how much must our admiration and our sense of the value of this work be increased when we perceive with what earnestness of effort, and with what depth of feeling, the Fieldmarshal had revolved these thoughts in his mind till he brought them to maturity.

And more than that. It was his wish to bequeath these consolatory thoughts to his family, as a sincere confession of his private convictions. This is the light in which he wished posterity to regard this ma.n.u.script, which he wrote out in the last year of his life, in wonderfully firm characters, which attest the worth of the matter contained in it.

He wrote down these thoughts at Creisau, and left the copy on his desk. Whenever he visited his country-seat he revised and corrected what he had written. No less than four drafts of the introduction to this work have been preserved.

The succession of thoughts is the same in all four versions, but on the one hand renewed and deepened meditations enabled him to express his ideas with greater force and precision, and on the other sometimes developed them further, so as to present them more exhaustively and convincingly.

These pages contain the last efforts of a n.o.ble life. In them Moltke appears as he was when we knew him and took him for our pattern, reconciled with the anomalies and the contradictions of life, with a pious grasp of principles which he had thought out for himself, and in the a.s.surance of which he found peace. We learn here how it was possible for him to rise superior to the world, and preserve a contented mind in all the vicissitudes of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: From _Moltke: His Life and Character_. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York and London.]

DR. TORCHE-MITTLER.

Man feels that he is a complete being, different from other creatures, and outwardly distinguished from them by his body, which here on earth is the habitation of the soul.

Yet in this complete whole I believe I can distinguish different functions, which, though closely connected with the soul, and ruled by it, have an independent existence.

In the mysterious beginnings of life physical development takes the first place. Nature is busily at work in the child's body as it grows, and is already preparing it to be the dwelling-place of higher functions. The body reaches the acme of its perfection before its career is half over, and out of the surplus of its energy calls new life into being. Thenceforward its lot is decay and painful struggling to preserve its own existence.

During something like a third of our existence, that is, while we are asleep, the body receives no commands from its ruler, and yet the heart beats without interruption, the tissues are wasted and repaired, and the process of respiration is continued, all independently of our will.

The servant may even rebel against the master, as when our muscles are painfully contracted by cramp. But pain is the summons for help which is sent by the living organism when it has lost control over the dead matter, which loss we feel as the illness of our va.s.sal.

On the whole we must regard our body as a real part of our being, which is still, in a sense, external to our inmost selves.

Is, then, the soul at least the true ego, a single and indivisible whole?

The intellect advances, by slow development, to greater and greater perfection till old age is reached, if the body does not leave it in the lurch. The critical faculty grows as experience acc.u.mulates, but memory, reason's handmaid, disappears at an earlier stage, or at least loses the power of receiving new impressions. Wonderful enough is this faculty which enables us to store up all the valuable lessons and experiences of earliest youth in a thousand drawers, which open in a moment in answer to the requirements of the mind.

It is not to be disputed that the old often appear dull-witted, but I cannot believe in a real darkening of the reason, which is a bright spark of the Divine, and even in madness the negation of reason is only external and apparent. A deaf man playing on an instrument out of tune may strike the right notes, and be inwardly persuaded that his execution is faultless, while all around him hear nothing but the wildest discords.

The sovereignty of reason is absolute; she recognizes no superior authority. No power, not even that of our own wills, can compel her to regard as false what she has already recognized as true.

_E pur si muove_!

Thought ranges through the infinite realms of starry s.p.a.ce, and fathoms the inscrutable depths of the minutest life, finding nowhere any _limit_, but everywhere _law_, which is the immediate expression of the divine thought.

The stone falls on Sirius by the same law of gravitation as on the earth; the distances of the planets, the combinations of chemical elements are based on arithmetical ratios, and everywhere the same causes produce the same effects. Nowhere in nature is there anything arbitrary, but everywhere law. True, reason cannot comprehend the origin of things, but neither is she anywhere in conflict with the laws that govern all things. Reason and the universe are in harmony; they must therefore have the same origin.

Even when, through the imperfection of all created things, reason enters on paths which lead to error, truth is still the one object of her search.

Reason may thus be brought into conflict with many an honored tradition. She rejects miracle, "faith's dearest child," and refuses to admit that Omnipotence can ever find it necessary for the attainment of its purposes to suspend, in isolated cases, the operation of those laws by which the universe is eternally governed.

But these doubts are not directed against religion, but against the form in which religion is presented to us.

Christianity has raised the world from barbarism to civilization. Its influence has, in the course of centuries, abolished slavery, enn.o.bled work, emanc.i.p.ated women, and revealed eternity. But was it dogma that brought these blessings? It is possible to avoid misunderstandings with regard to all subjects except those which transcend human conception, and these are the very subjects over which men have fought and desolated the world for the last eighteen hundred years, from the extermination of the Arians, on through the Thirty Years' War, to the scaffold of the Inquisition, and what is the result of all this fighting? The same differences of opinion as ever.

We may accept the doctrines of religion, as we accept the a.s.surance of a trusty friend, without examination, but the kernel of all religions is the morality they teach, of which the Christian is the purest and most far-reaching.

And yet men speak slightingly of a barren morality, and place the form in which religion is presented before everything else. I fear it is the pulpit zealot, who tries to persuade where he cannot convince, that empties the church with his sermons.

After all, why should not every pious prayer, whether addressed to Buddha, to Allah, or to Jehovah, be heard by the same G.o.d, beside whom there is none other? Does not the mother hear her child's pet.i.tion in whatever language it lisps her name?

Reason is nowhere in conflict with morality, for the good is always finally identical with the rational; but whether our actions shall or shall not correspond with the good, reason cannot decide. Here the ruling part of the soul is supreme, the soul which feels, acts, and wills. To her alone, not to her two va.s.sals, has G.o.d entrusted the two-edged sword of freewill, that gift which, as Scripture tells us, may be our salvation or our perdition.